Boulder, Colo. — March 29, 2010 — As part of the next phase in advancing
suborbital research opportunities and their own flight preparations, Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®)
researchers and suborbital payload specialists Dr. Alan Stern
and Dr. Dan Durda have begun a new element of spaceflight training with a series
of jet fighter flights in F-104 aircraft operated by Starfighters Inc. at the
Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The first SwRI Starfighters flights and the
associated ground training, took place March 15-16.

The intensive, two-day course, which Stern and Durda took to inaugurate this
element of their spaceflight training, included classroom instruction, aircraft
cockpit familiarization, and actual flights flown from the Shuttle Landing
Facility at Kennedy Space Center.

"The F-104 Starfighters training program allows us to move from laboratory
centrifuge training to actual high-G ascent profiles rocketing us nearly 25,000
feet at 5 to 6 Gs, topped by zero-G parabolas. We each flew several of these
ascent profiles in our initial flights, as well as various high-G turns and
other training exercises that help us get acclimated to the expected launch and
entry environments on suborbital research missions we plan to fly in coming
years," says Principal Investigator Stern.

"The F-104 Starfighter is one of the few aircraft out there with a performance
envelope that allows a realistic flight environment-like launch and
glide-to-landing profiles of some of the next-generation suborbital vehicles we
expect to be flying soon," says Co-investigator Durda. "The Starfighters team
has done a great job of putting together a unique suborbital spaceflight
training capability and making this resource available to future fliers," he
adds.

Starfighters is the only commercial aviation organization that holds written
permission from both NASA and the FAA to conduct this type of training.

Stern, who holds a commercial pilot license and is a certified flight
instructor, has been principal investigator on seven unmanned NASA suborbital
rocket missions, has flown numerous high-altitude research missions in NASA
WB-57 and F/A-18 aircraft, and has participated in research expeditions in both
the arctic and Antarctic. He was previously NASA's Associate Administrator for
science.

Durda, a planetary scientist, is an experienced SCUBA cave rescue diver, a
former F/A-18 and KC-135 research mission flyer, and an instrument-rated pilot.

Stern and Durda are operating under an SwRI-funded effort aimed at conducting
in-space experiments using next-generation suborbital vehicles for various kinds
of scientific research and public outreach. An earlier portion of this project
included altitude chamber and centrifuge training at The NASTAR Center near
Philadelphia.